Callaway, Bay County bump heads over lift station

CALLAWAY — Callaway and Bay County officials agree a hazardous, corroding lift sta-tion at a city park is creating a public safety hazard, but they don’t agree on what to do about it.

Jacqueline Bostick / The News Herald

CALLAWAY — Callaway and Bay County officials agree a hazardous, corroding lift sta-tion at a city park is creating a public safety hazard, but they don’t agree on what to do about it.

County officials say the problem is that Callaway doesn’t pretreat wastewater coming from the Sandy Creek area. But the city says the county’s odor control system is in-adequate.

Mayor Thomas Abbott and Bay County Commissioner Guy Tunnell met recently to discuss master lift station Bay County-2 (BC-2) at Veterans Park in Callaway, where hazardous levels of hydrogen sulfide have been detected. According to county emails to Callaway, “hydrogen sulfide levels within the wetwell of this lift station are extremely high, are toxic and pose a potential danger for an explosion.”

Both governments have made a commitment to gather information from experts — includ-ing third party experts — to find the source of elevated levels of hydrogen sulfide and solutions to fix it. There is no set date for results of expert findings.

“There was some differences of opinions as to the status of that lift station,” Tunnell said. “It’s at a real critical state and it is important for us to deal with issues at hand and get away from the personalities and hard feelings.”

Callaway is one of three municipalities that are part of the 1996 Military Point Ad-vanced Wastewater Treatment (AWT) Facility Interlocal Agreement. Bay County is the operator of the AWT system.

“What we both know is there is a problem that’s been going on for at least 10 years,” Abbott said. “I’m confident there will be solutions available to us and we will look at the solutions and choose the best solutions.”

The county has asked wastewater facility treatment experts to assess the source of elevated levels of hydrogen sulfide at the lift station.

In a Nov. 8 email to Callaway, Terrell Arline, county attorney, wrote: “The county has measured levels of hydrogen sulfide entering BC-2 from Callaway’s sewage distribu-tion lines in excess of 1,000 parts per million (100 ppm is considered extremely haz-ardous by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration).”

According to county utilities director Paul Lackemacher, experts determined wastewa-ter traveling from Allanton Road off State 22 to the Sandy Creek area is not being pretreated and therefore elevates the levels of hydrogen sulfide.

“The AWT’s opinion is that (Callaway) must pretreat and they are in violation of the agreement,” Lackemacher said. “Violation notices (from the county) have been issued.”

The two violation notices state Callaway is in violation of the agreement because it failed to pretreat its wastewater for corrosive materials — which, in the county’s eyes, includes hydrogen sulfide. However, Callaway officials said because Callaway is a member of the AWT and not within the “county’s general police power” — the county does not have authority to issue violation notices. Callaway city attorney Kevin Obos wrote in an Oct. 28 response to the county’s violation notices: “The county does not operate the Military Point System in its own right and with the authority to set its own rules. It operates the system as an opera-tor authorized by the owners and within the limits of that authorization.”

When Larry Johnson, Callaway public works director, attempted to enter the lift sta-tion alongside county officials recently, county officials would not permit him.

On scene, Lawrence Moyer, wastewater superintendent at the county, had told Johnson he didn’t have permission to access the lift station.

In a later interview, Lackemacker said Moyer was looking after Johnson’s health and wellbeing.

“He didn’t have on his safety equipment,” Lackermacher said of Johnson. “It’s a dan-gerous environment.” Johnson said in an interview, that the county was overstepping its authority.

According to email correspondence between Callaway and Bay County, Callaway has been barred from accessing the lift station without permission from the county. A locked fence is erected around the station and the city has to call county officials to gain access.

According to the email, the county plans to install a video and audio alarm system with warning signs around the fence perimeter. Meanwhile, Johnson said the chemical, a naturally occurring chemical in human waste, is inevitably always going to be present in wastewater and the county’s odor control system is inadequate.

Johnson consulted with a wastewater odor and corrosion control specialist who said Callaway could pretreat wastewater coming from the Sandy Creek area, but it wouldn’t drastically change the levels of hydrogen sulfide found at the lift station. He said the odor control system is inadequate.

In an email to Johnson, Vaughan Harshman, a technical sales representative at Siemens Water Technology who took observations at the lift station on Oct. 31, wrote: “…The wet well is under pressure, not vacuum. i.e., the current system is not pulling enough air.” In a Nov. 8 email to Johnson, Harshman wrote that according to a reading of a county meter, the lift station showed levels of hydrogen sulfide at 611 ppm. In the same email, he made treatment recommendations.

Abbott said he could not verify whether the city pretreats for pollutants, but he does not believe hydrogen sulfide is a pollutant anyway.

“City of Callaway complies with all requirements of the AWT, and one of those requirements has to do with pretreatment of pollutants, very specifically,” Abbott said. “It’s not definitive that it’s a pollutant that’s causing the problem.”

Other municipalities in the agreement have no complaints.

“We don’t have any problems,” said Springfield Mayor Ralph Hammond. “Any time you build something close to the lift station, you’re going to have an odor.”

Parker Mayor Rich Musgrave said the county handles all regular and preventive main-tenance at the city’s lift station.

“As far as I know, we have had no concerns with the county,” Musgrave said. “We’re in good shape.”

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